Happy Birthday, Abe…and Don’t Forget Charles

So what was it about that date — February 12, 1809? Or perhaps the better question should be, what was it about a day nine months earlier? Somehow, that day in February gave the human race two of its most influential men — perhaps the two most consequential people who lived in the 19th century.  On February 12, 1809, Charles Robert Darwin was born at The Mount in Shropshire, England. And on that same day, Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Ky. Two hundred years later, Lincoln is remembered as perhaps the greatest American president, the man who saved the Union and freed the slaves. Darwin freed the world of certain superstitions, and revolutionized science. The Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, and On the Origin of Species are certainly among the most important documents that era produced. Today there are happy birthday parties for the two men across the country (a Google search gets us first to this afternoon’s shindig at the Center for Inquiry Indiana — at 350 Canal Walk, Suite A, Indianapolis — where "birthday cake and films celebrating these two important men will be running continuously.") You can also buy "Happy 200th Birthday Abe and Chuck" t-shirts on e-Bay. And there are interesting tributes in the blogosphere: we found this on JimSchmidt.com: "Darwin is a favourite of every atheist. While Lincoln influenced the U.S. to a large extent, the U.S. is not the world; Darwin’s idea revolutionised the field of biology, created new fields in science, explained a lot of things scientists didn’t understand back then, and it was a slap in the face of creationists… One freed the mind of ruinous and crippling superstition. The other freed the people from the ruinous and crippling institution of slavery. One slew superstition. The other slew slavery. For years, I have personally celebrated, quietly, Lincoln Darwin Day, February 12, as a day to honor the lives of two of the greatest men that ever lived. The effects of their lives’ work were profound and continue to this day to have influence." Happy birthday to two extraordinary men.